California, Other States Lead the Charge Toward Copenhagen

After nearly a decade of waiting for two presidents and Congress to embrace the principles of the Kyoto Protocol, California decided to take unilateral action in 2006. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill that would bring his state into near compliance with the international treaty's climate goals and timetables.

California’s capping of greenhouse gas emissions has since been followed by other states.

These sub-national actions on climate change are far from insignificant. California alone emits 1.4 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, which would approximately tie it with France for 14th most if it were a country. But the state's emissions cap aims to bring those emissions down to 1990 levels by 2020, and to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

State-level moves like California's may hold a valuable key to substantive action on climate change as huge, more diverse bodies like the U.S. Congress and the international negotiators meeting in Copenhagen next week struggle to reach agreements that can satisfy all involved.

During the long wait for national and international action, states have taken matters into their own hands, and their work has met with heartening success, says a new report from Environment America.

State-level actions will reduce emissions by around 536 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2020, more than is currently emitted annually by all but the eight top-emitting countries, the report's authors found. They didn't count future programs or projects; only those for which funding has already been allocated.

“America’s state governments — where the bulk of on-the-ground energy policy decision-making is made in America’s federal system of government — have taken the nation on a different course, one of innovative and increasingly aggressive action to reduce global warming pollution,” the authors note.

Schwarzenegger, lauded the report, adding:

"Global warming is a global problem that requires a global solution, and California is proof that sub-national governments can make a difference."

Approximately half of all the emissions reductions the report anticipates by 2020 are attributable to state emissions caps. In addition to California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland and New Jersey have caps. These states combine to “produce nearly a quarter of America’s economic output and 13 percent of its fossil fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions,” Environment America points out.

Regional emissions caps, like those set by the Northeast's 10-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, are also singled out by the report. The states involved in RGGI sell emission allowances, and the targeted emitters must participate if they want to continue to operate in the region. The initiative aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the region’s power sector 10 percent by 2018. Two similar programs are being considered elsewhere in the country — the Western Climate Initiative and the Midwest Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord.

Renewable portfolio standards, which require that a minimum percentage of electricity sold by utilities come from renewable sources, will contribute about an eighth of the reductions from state efforts by 2020, the report predicts. California recently raised its RPS to 33 percent by 2020, well above the EU's target of 20 percent by 2020 and RPS targets proposed by both climate bills now in Congress.